cellphones

The European Union said Wednesday it has successfully launched four additions to its Galileo satellite navigation system into orbit, bringing the “constellation” to 22 satellites boosting cellphone signals and making road and rail transport safer and more efficient.

A federal judge has allowed consumers to pursue their antitrust claims against computer chip giant Qualcomm, finding claims that they paid more for smartphones because the company jacked up the prices on the chips have merit.

A cellphone app that has been shaking up Florida’s traffic-ticket-fighting market this year claims in a federal complaintthat the state bar association is conspiring with a more established competitor to shut it down.

Citgo Petroleum Corp. claims two technology companies are liable for an $8 million settlement it reached this summer in a federal class action accusing it of sending text messages to contest participants without permission.

The Ninth Circuit on Wednesday refused to rehear an appeal over a Berkeley, California, law that requires retailers warn consumers about radiation from cellphones, despite one circuit judge’s scathing dissent.

A federal class action claims that Baskin-Robbins advertised that texting “scoop” to a number would win a free scoop of ice cream — but not that it would subject the texter to annoying automatic calls and texts, in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

Nearly two dozen Texas cities claim that a new state law unconstitutionally requires them to grant wireless providers the use of public right-of-ways at a below-market rate, at a loss of over $800 million per year.

In a manslaughter-by-texting case, the Massachusetts woman who convinced her suicidal boyfriend to kill himself was sentenced Thursday to two and a half years in prison, setting what some say is a dangerous precedent for how the First Amendment is applied to modern communication.

Distracted driving has been blamed for a spike in traffic fatalities last year, but three drivers claim in a class action that Chicago’s response to the problem puts motorists through a money-making scheme with little due process.

With the Supreme Court bracing to decide whether the government needs a warrant to track cellphone location data, a New York federal judge behind one famous case involving mass surveillance answered that question in the negative.

Prompting rebuke by the American Civil Liberties Union, a Massachusetts judge handed an involuntary-manslaughter conviction Friday to the girlfriend of a teen who killed himself after she urged him to do so via text message.

Police in Rome say they have arrested a man who allegedly shot smartphone videos of women’s panties, preying on tourists wearing short skirts at the famed Trevi Fountain and even fondling them to get a better shot.